I’m Not Picking on Ernie. I swear.

Okay, it might seem like all I do is react to articles that Ernie the Attorney posts, but I swear, I’m not picking on him!

Today, he offers this tidbit and calls the press attitude towards Kerry’s speech “inane”. Well, he’s wrong. And as sometimes Democrat registered as a Republican who mostly votes Libertarian, I’ll tell you why.

Kerry’s speech was monumentally significant. Not because it was a great speech; Barak Obama stole the show on that count. Kerry is simply not a very dynamic public speaker. And not because it was brilliantly written. It did have some political double-speak and typical non-specific, non-committal policy points. What political speech these days doesn’t? (Save Al Sharpton and Barak Obama.) However, it was significantly better than any speech he’s given to date. And that is important. It’s also important that the speech did contain enough meat to make me feel okay about voting for him. In fact, that was critical; that is why it was monumentally significant.

The Democratic Party faces a real challenge with Kerry. To be honest, I didn’t support him in the primary and when it became clear that he was the nominee, I had the attitude far too many voters seem to have today: “Well, at least he’s not Bush!” Frankly, that’s a horrible way to feel about the person you are considering casting your vote for as the President of the United States. As voters, we want dynamic leaders, with vision, who stand for clear ideals and who we hope will be able to implement at least some of those ideals. And here we are, the nation’s “liberals”, ready to vote for “Not the Incumbent”. That sucks.

With his speech, Kerry may not have hit a home run, but it was a solid base hit. Kerry never inspired me, but before that speech, I honestly didn’t like him. And now, I do like him. Do I think he’s a great speaker? No. Do I think he would make a good president? Yes. Do I think he’s going to be Lincoln meets FDR and lead America to dominate the solar system? Well, no. But give me a break. Very, and I mean very, few politicians inspire like that today. I can’t think of a candidate since I’ve been alive who inspires like that.

I’m pretty representative of the average American voter. I’m a middle class Mid-Westerner, raised Christian (don’t practice much) fiscally conservative, socially liberal. Before, I was just voting against George Bush. Now, I’m voting for Kerry. If the power of one speech at one event can do that in today’s cynical world, I think that’s pretty monumental.